I wish to say long-winded and generally unkind things about Spec Ops:The Line.

[T3hSource]

Well this just helps me draw the full conclusion that for Spec Ops to seem like an enjoyable experience, you have to be somewhat naively emotionally invested in it for the whole thing to work.

If you're not immersed and emotionally invested, all you're seeing are cheap shots at shocking someone.

 

[AD-Stu]

The game is preaching to the choir.

The kind of gamer Spec Ops is criticising, doesn't play Spec Ops.

Essentially, this ends up making the game a lecturer, then curb stomping anyone who wants to hear what it has to say.

'SO YOU WANT TO BE A HERO, LOOK AT ALL THE HORRIBLE THINGS YOU DID.'

'Well, no, actually sir, I just wanted to hear what you ha-'

'SILENCE, FEEL BAD, FEEL BAD FOR THE CHOICES YOU MADE."

That's something that's difficult to judge though - we know now exactly what kind of game it is and what its message is. But at the time it was launched, it was advertised pretty much exactly the same as any number of other dudebro modern military shooters. So I think there's a very good chance, at least at launch, that a whole heap of the gamers they were criticising did in fact get to play it.

Its influence also goes beyond the people who played it first hand. It got the gaming media talking about it a whole heap, so even if the dudebros didn't actually play the game, they still heard about its message if they had any contact with the gaming media at the time.

 

[Battenberg]

- Why the hell are Lupo and Lieutenant Whatsisname following a man who is clearly mad? During the flashback bit at the end it shows Walker talking into the broken radio while the other two exchange what-the-fuck looks, so they are clearly aware that something is up. Yet they continue to follow. "Chain of command", you might say, but that doesn't involve following the orders of a man who has started hearing voices.

It could well be a plot hole or mistake on the part of the writers but I thought it was in keeping with the typical hierarchy of most miitary shooters. You rarely see insubordination from lower ranking soldiers (often including the player themself) in shooters, with the highest ranking characters always having an air of untouchableness about them. I can't think of a whole lot of shooters where you have any say in whether or not you want to follow the orders of the superiors, if you want the game to progress you have to complete whatever your objective is, you can't simply rebel or go rogue; there just isn't that level of control or choice in your average shooter. Sometimes that simply means doing something you don't have any interest in but sometimes it does mean doing something you would prefer to actively oppose and find particularly unsavoury. A basic example would be every kill you make against someone who hasn't attacked you/ isn't a threat to you in any way, another example would be any game where you know something the characters in the game don't but are powerless to reactto this knowledge accordingly (e.g. you realise Captain X is secretly a double agent but, due to the game's design, have to continue following his order in order to progress through the next 5 hours of gameplay). In this way you could argue that the support characters are representative of the average person playing a shooter because like a lot of players they are powerless to make a difference to the events they see unfolding and are essentially just along for the ride with no say in where they are going or what they are doing.

Just a theory but that was how I interpreted it and if that is a deliberate choice on the part of the studio I think it's pretty impressive that they go into that level of depth.

Of course I do agree with one main thing you said - that the absence of true choice at some stages of the game detracts from its message. In particular the whole white phosphorous thing. When I played that section of the game it's obvious on the monitor from the way the white dots you see move that they aren't soldiers, I didn't realise they would be civilians but I figured enough that I deliberately avoided firing on that area however after waiting a full 5-10 minutes it was obvious there was no way to progress without firing. As a result when it was revealed that I had just killed a bunch of families I felt no responsibility as I had attempted not to do this. It was a real shame since I got the impression this should have been a turning point in the game and had a huge emotional impact on me but because it was the game's choice and not mine I had the same minimal response I would have gotten from seeing my character do morally bad things in any other shooter.

 

[Marik2]

"But!" You might tell me, "Those messages weren't aimed at a handsome, intelligent and brilliantly insightful individual such as yourself! They were directed at the people who get a kick out of military shooters. That's why the game started off all safe and familiar with Whitey McBuzzcut and his Yankee pals shooting Foreign-speaking brown people in a desert."

Thing is, are such folks really going to care what the game has to say? Especially when the game's moment-to-moment gameplay is basically indistinguishable from the games it's trying to critique. If they're just there for the big phallic guns, headshots and military lingo then the game unironically provides that in ample quantities.

Yeah those guys are not going to notice the messages at all, because they would be too busy complaining about the gameplay.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL1F7B4F39C68B7F47&v=85HTgVLtYEg&feature=player_detailpage#t=244

While I do still like the game, you pointed out some of the stuff that wasn't sitting well with me.

The game was fun for me, because of the good background scenery and the whole theme of drowning in madness.

 

[Silverbeard]

Secondly, I found the attempts to make the player feel guilty to be rather inept. The game very clearly wanted me to feel bad about the whole white phosphorus incident and the general murder and mayhem. However, it never gave me any choice in the matter. I cannot be made to feel guilty about an action that wasn't of my doing. That's like saying, "That guy over there killed a kitten! Therefore you are a monster!" You need to make me choose to do it, or at least make me want to do it, then you can happily go about guilt-tripping me inside out.

This is actually one of the best things about the game; a brilliant turn of writing that makes The Line a true artsy game: It recognizes that there is a player behind the screen and that the player must be a part of the proceedings, not just the driver. Your reaction is certainly valid and likely shared by many others who played the game. You had no choice. The game said 'do it!' and gave you no other route forward. So you did it.
What you did, mate, was follow orders that you had no part in forming, as many soldiers do all over the world when it comes down to the wire. Does that make you feel guilty? Or can you justify what amounts to an atrocity because someone else told you to do it? Either response is valid; one is not more superior to any other in the context of the game. How many other soldiers have used white phos to burn out an enemy and then viewed the carnage with apathy and said 'I only followed orders'? How many tortured Iraqi citizens in prisons in Baghdad and went to sleep later with no guilt because 'the orders were the orders'? More than I can ever know in one lifetime, most likely.
Regardless, your disagreement with the game (at least as far as this part goes) is truly one of the best parts about it.

 

[Weaver]

I was just pissed because I bought it for the express purpose of experiencing this "amazing" story everyone was talking about; but it's only in any way impressive if you're a gunbro gamer who likes killing foreign people or if you're expecting the game to have a really shitty story. And it doesn't have a really shitty story, it just has a kind of crap story. When you're told the story is so amazing and get "kind of crap" that's a great way to be disappointed.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

Secondly, I found the attempts to make the player feel guilty to be rather inept. The game very clearly wanted me to feel bad about the whole white phosphorus incident and the general murder and mayhem. However, it never gave me any choice in the matter. I cannot be made to feel guilty about an action that wasn't of my doing. That's like saying, "That guy over there killed a kitten! Therefore you are a monster!" You need to make me choose to do it, or at least make me want to do it, then you can happily go about guilt-tripping me inside out.

This is actually one of the best things about the game; a brilliant turn of writing that makes The Line a true artsy game: It recognizes that there is a player behind the screen and that the player must be a part of the proceedings, not just the driver. Your reaction is certainly valid and likely shared by many others who played the game. You had no choice. The game said 'do it!' and gave you no other route forward. So you did it.
What you did, mate, was follow orders that you had no part in forming, as many soldiers do all over the world when it comes down to the wire. Does that make you feel guilty? Or can you justify what amounts to an atrocity because someone else told you to do it? Either response is valid; one is not more superior to any other in the context of the game. How many other soldiers have used white phos to burn out an enemy and then viewed the carnage with apathy and said 'I only followed orders'? How many tortured Iraqi citizens in prisons in Baghdad and went to sleep later with no guilt because 'the orders were the orders'? More than I can ever know in one lifetime, most likely.
Regardless, your disagreement with the game (at least as far as this part goes) is truly one of the best parts about it.

For me, it will be "I am already damned, who cares about morality?"

Walker was the wrong kind of person to go into Dubai, someone like Strayed from Armored Core would have done it without getting traumatized

 

[Animyr]

Walker was the wrong kind of person to go into Dubai, someone like Strayed from Armored Core would have done it without getting traumatized

They implied that Walker was already mentally unstable from the previous wars he'd fought in, a weakness he covered up with a veneer of steely professionalism.

Personally, I thought Walker was not really an avatar for the player (and that by condemning the former, the game is condemning the latter). The game takes deliberate steps to distance the player from Walker; by around the WP scene, the futility of his mission and his moral delusions (if not his mental delusions) are readily apparent. Granted the guilt tripping elements are present and granted they aren't very effective if the player knows what's coming, but spec ops does other things, so I don't really think that pointing out that spec ops is inconsistent at guilt tripping really means that the game is even close to a thematic failure.

Consider, for instance, that Walker is not so much a player avatar, and not so much a character in his own right, but a representation of the characters from different stories; namely, the typical MMS. Walker is an amalgamation of the characteristics of the lead heroes from other videogames, both the personalities that are typically given them in the script (stoic, determined, doesn't hesitate to do what needs to be done, implicitly patriotic) and imposed upon them by the nature of gameplay-(relentless killer, never turns around, never stops fighting, fighting and big guns solves all problems the character has,) etc. His appearance (white brown-haired military male) his name, and his voice actor all lend to the "everyman" design, though in this case, he's not every man but every videogame hero-man. He is then put into a world where his traits and desires serve him very poorly for a change.

To wit, typically the player's goals, gameplay goals, and player character goals all align in the same direction. If nothing else, Spec ops brings the player's goals out of alignment with the other two (whether this happens as the player plays through the game, or right on the offset because the player knows details about the story already, it still works) ) and then follows up on the ramifications of that setup, which makes for an interesting gameplay experience. In separating the player's mindset from that of the game, Spec ops allows the player to see the narrative and moral traits and conventions that many games (especially shooters) implicitly espouse from an outside perspective, exposing their weaknesses (or at least making you look at them in a way you haven't before)

Sure, you might say that you knew everything that spec ops had to say before, but I don't think it's ever been said in this way, and personally, even though I already was aware of most of the things Spec ops pointed out, I liked watching it talk about it.

And regardless of its purposes for education on storytelling conventions in games, watching a character from one type of story (military/action hero) be dropped into another type of story (psychological horror) is a worthy narrative gimmick in its own right. Even if you think spec ops didn't do that too well ( I think it did fine) I do think it's an idea worth exploring in more games.

Besides that, I really liked Spec-Op's combination of gritty realism and psychological landscape. To those complaining about realism, personally I always thought that the Dubai in the game has fallen into the twilight zone; some sort of pocket dimension whose nature contorts around Walker's damaged psyche(another interpretation is that he's in hell). So the unrealistic stuff (ranging from inaccurate portrayals of military operation to the implausible walls of sand to the fact that the game always has you descending no matter how low you go) is not only excused but actually helps the atmosphere and reinforces the themes. BTW, one possible interpretation the dev team has mentioned is that Walker is dead and the game takes place in his own personal hell.

 

[white_wolf]

I wasn't a fan of the game it played fairly straight forward then tried to guilt trip me and make me out to be a psychopath which the character didn't really display until the end a few out burst by him and the gang but that's to be expected.

I didn't pick between the hanging men I just shot all the company who were around us knowing no matter who I picked they'd just shoot the other guy and since both were guilty I wasn't going to play along yet at the end he tries to convince me those two men where already dead and I shot one yet oddly enough my men don't go, " boss, why are you starring at corpses?" If the radio chatter was all in my head why didn't either man tell me that no one is talking on my broken radio? Or when I saved my very cute sniper guy does he not breathe in front of me? Sorry illusions only go so far this game has presentation and suspension issues they do a poor job of conveying insanity they needed way more time then they put out to flush out the changes maybe some character self narrative similar to how Nillin talks/ thinks to herself. It's not the worse game I've played but it was a let down considering I wanted to play it months before I bought it.

 

[Silverbeard]

This is actually one of the best things about the game; a brilliant turn of writing that makes The Line a true artsy game: It recognizes that there is a player behind the screen and that the player must be a part of the proceedings, not just the driver. Your reaction is certainly valid and likely shared by many others who played the game. You had no choice. The game said 'do it!' and gave you no other route forward. So you did it.
What you did, mate, was follow orders that you had no part in forming, as many soldiers do all over the world when it comes down to the wire. Does that make you feel guilty? Or can you justify what amounts to an atrocity because someone else told you to do it? Either response is valid; one is not more superior to any other in the context of the game. How many other soldiers have used white phos to burn out an enemy and then viewed the carnage with apathy and said 'I only followed orders'? How many tortured Iraqi citizens in prisons in Baghdad and went to sleep later with no guilt because 'the orders were the orders'? More than I can ever know in one lifetime, most likely.
Regardless, your disagreement with the game (at least as far as this part goes) is truly one of the best parts about it.

...You know...Expect the fact the orders were just to recon the area; The orders specifically stated to find signs of human life and report back with the findings....Not to go on a genocidal massacre.

A solider obeying orders? Bwhahaha! More like going AWOL.

Walker's orders were not the player's orders, were they? The player showed up to have a bit of fun. Whatever Walker went in to do only he knows. The white phos scene was something different; it was almost like watching Walker give an order to the player that the player had no choice but to follow.
An officer giving orders to an underling that is sure to result in something terrible happening? Sounds rather believable to me! It also leads back into the previous question: how much guilt lies with the person who pulled the trigger and how much lies with the person who gave the instruction to do it?

Incidentally, on a verbal level, 'AWOL' stands for 'Away without leave'. That's one step up from desertion and is very different from what Walker did. US army law, as well as international rulings, would view Walker's escapade as a series of war crimes of varying intensity. He'd most likely be tried for each one separately. AWOL would have nothing to do with it, if such proceedings were to occur and if anyone accused Walker of that, he'd be innocent- because he wasn't off his post, he was actively on duty, even if no witnesses are left to prove it.
Just so you know, mate.

 

[gargantual]

But you didn't stop, did you? You chose to continue trying to play the big hero and to see what could be recovered from the situation. But there wasn't. There was only more death, more violence and a finale showing that everything you did was for nothing. There was no payoff at the end of the game, no big victory scene, no heroics. Only death, loss and a ignoble finish.

But that's ok, because so did I. And so did many others.

You are presuming motives at a most prodigious rate

I didn't continue playing because I wanted to be a hero. I don't have any such desire. (I'm not saying I'm immune to violent heroic power fantasies, I just have no interest in military-flavoured ones.) I continued playing because I wanted to see what would happen and where the game would go.

If there had been a little prompt in the corner of the screen saying 'Hold Shift-R to stop being an idiot, retreat and make a report to your superiors like any non-retarded soldier would have done several hours ago' then I would have done that and it would have been a valid choice within the game. (Although I probably would have replayed later to see what happens if I didn't do that.) That is not equivalent to turning off the game.

Turning off the game does not end the story. Walker still does what he does and shit still goes down. I just wouldn't be there to see it.

Besides, a game, or any piece of media, exists to be experienced. A piece of media that causes its audience to walk away would be failing as hard as it is possible for media to fail.

Hah! Sooo true. Imagine someone trying to sell an incomplete early access game with something in the start convincing players to walk away before they saw there was nothing to be experienced.

...and then try to pass it off as artistic expression!

I guess this means in some books the Liquid Snake speech in MGS, and The Sorrow from MGS3 (maybe even Tekken 4 Forces's end credits roll) are still reigning examples of making self-aware commentary on the players in-game kill count.

 

[sonofliber]

The game made me do it, congrafuckinglations you just hit the game point

 

[Racecarlock]

This is not a game made for modern warfare players, by these descriptions.

This is the game for people who think all call of duty players are 12 year old bro dude douchebags. That's it. I like how one loading screen says "But these civilians are made of pixels, so why should you care?"

*boil boil boil*

YOU'RE RIGHT, LOADING SCREEN! WHY SHOULD I CARE?! WHY SHOULD I GIVE A SHIT WHAT HAPPENS TO A BUNCH OF CODING AND PIXELS THAT IS NOT A REAL HUMAN?!

This is the MMS equivalent of those shitty, stupid pokemon and mario parodies that PETA makes. Yes, this game is PETA level.

 

[Zhukov]

Christ. Wasn't expecting to see this thread again.

I find it amusing and confusing that everyone is discussing the story of the game instead of the obvious gameplay problems
It is quite probably the worst shooter i have ever played
Why?
Magnetic walls suck you into them with the sprint button sums it up about right
Atrocious controls

People discuss the story because it was at least interesting. They don't discuss the gameplay because it wasn't.

Personally I had no real issue with the gameplay. It was just average. The controls worked fine for me playing on PC version.

The game made me do it, congrafuckinglations you just hit the game point

The game didn't make me do it. The game did it all on its own, while I watched and made smartarse remarks, then the game turned around and tried to guilt trip me for it. "Oh ho, you wanted to be a hero, yooooouuu monster!"

It felt like that thing kids do where they grab your hand and hit you with it while saying, "Why are you hitting yourself, huh? Why are you? Why?"

 

[Madkipz]

The big argument supporters of the game make though that cracks me up is this "Oh but you have the choice to stop playing the game". Because yeah.......... when I buy a game for 60+ dollars that's what I'm looking for.

I'm always highly amused by this supposed counter-argument. Regardless of how you feel about that choice, its STILL A CHOICE. And thus your counter-argument is no argument at all.

Rationalise it all you want. Insist that you don't want to buy a game only to not finish it. Rile against how its unfair that you didn't have any other option but to do these horrible things to continue. Claim that the violence doesn't matter because its just a bunch of computer code. Complain how unfair it is that it tries to make you feel guilty for reveling in it, or ignoring it focusing on the goal, or whatever story you told yourself to get through the game. Whatever you like if it makes you feel better.

However it doesn't change or excuse the fact there was absolutely nothing forcing you to carry on playing. Nothing. You could have uninstalled right there and then and never have carried out any of those awful acts. You did not have to do it. "I had to keep playing" is the same kind of excuse as "just following orders" in that it is no excuse at all. There is ALWAYS a choice to be made, even if that choice is simply to stop.

But you didn't stop, did you? You chose to continue trying to play the big hero and to see what could be recovered from the situation. But there wasn't. There was only more death, more violence and a finale showing that everything you did was for nothing. There was no payoff at the end of the game, no big victory scene, no heroics. Only death, loss and a ignoble finish.

But that's ok, because so did I. And so did many others.

Frankly the game left me a lot to think about. And the fact that people like yourself and the OP and several posters in this thread are so apparently so frustrated with it illustrates to me how wildly successful it has been with its goals.


But ok, you didn't like it. That's fair enough, not everything is for everyone especially with how uncomfortable this game is designed to make you feel. However regardless of that I sincerely feel that Spec Ops: The Line is one of the most important games of the last few years and that everyone should play through it once to take from it what they will. Some won't like it; but if it gets through to even a fraction of people its still worth doing.




Captcha: hunky dory

No, Captcha. It most definitely was not hunky-dory in Dubai; and that was the whole point.

I do understand that it is indeed a choice one can make. What I take issue with is the belief that that is somehow a point in the games favour. I find the idea of a game which cost 60 dollars at launch would encourage players to simply stop playing it to be completely absurd. It goes against the very reason I play video games.

Spec Ops did not cost 60 dollars. Not even at launch.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Spec Ops did not cost 60 dollars. Not even at launch.

Great, so now I have to continue a conversation that ended months ago...... Games are priced differently in different regions of the world. That should be fairly damn obvious.

 

[Goliath100]

I really hate Spec Ops deniers, all their problem with the game is more about their lack of understanding of design than any actual problem the game has. Half of their complaints can be countered by "Do you know what a Player Arc is?"

 

[gargantual]

Christ. Wasn't expecting to see this thread again.

I find it amusing and confusing that everyone is discussing the story of the game instead of the obvious gameplay problems
It is quite probably the worst shooter i have ever played
Why?
Magnetic walls suck you into them with the sprint button sums it up about right
Atrocious controls

People discuss the story because it was at least interesting. They don't discuss the gameplay because it wasn't.

Personally I had no real issue with the gameplay. It was just average. The controls worked fine for me playing on PC version.

The game made me do it, congrafuckinglations you just hit the game point

The game didn't make me do it. The game did it all on its own, while I watched and made smartarse remarks, then the game turned around and tried to guilt trip me for it. "Oh ho, you wanted to be a hero, yooooouuu monster!"

It felt like that thing kids do where they grab your hand and hit you with it while saying, "Why are you hitting yourself, huh? Why are you? Why?"

Yeah I'm convinced now. Liquid Snake in one sentence did what Spec Ops was trying to accomplish.

He said the player (well Solid Snake, but we knew who kojima was referencing)seem to sadistically ENJOY all the killing, and then accuses the player of denying it. Simple afterthought, no drawn out guilt trip tour. Which was true...I was denying that. They were fight or flight situations, and you're right. Who would be actively interested in picking up the controller or mouse to just lay down and die all the time and not see the end? Now THAT I would consider weird.